St. Paul Man Charged for Prostituting Woodbury Woman

A St. Paul man was recently charged in Washington County District Court for turning a woman to prostitution following 2009 incidents in Woodbury.

Darnell Steven Cox, 20, faces felony prostitution charges after Woodbury police learned that he contacted a Woodbury woman in January 2009 and she began working for him as a prostitute through the online classified service craigslist.

She told police that she had not been engaged in prostitution before meeting Cox and wanted to stop but was scared to, according to the criminal complaint. She told police that she would ask Cox to stop and his typical response was, “This is money.”

Woodbury police tracked a phone number associated with the craigslist ads and found that it belonged to Cox, who would collect the money for the sexual acts, according to the complaint.

The woman was living at the 6700 block of Ashwood Road in Woodbury and was allegedly offering sexual services for money under the name “Ginger Babi,” according to the complaint. Police spoke with managers at the apartment building and discovered that men frequently visited the woman’s unit for short periods of time.